


No Stay of Execution

by MalecCrazedAuthor



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Episode: s02e12 You Are Not Your Own, M/M, post-episode/coda, sort-of possibly temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 12:59:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecCrazedAuthor/pseuds/MalecCrazedAuthor
Summary: Post-episode s2ep12. Magnus tells Alec some home truths.





	No Stay of Execution

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, given the preview for s2ep13 we've seen, I know Magnus isn't quite to this point yet, but I needed to get this out. Don't look for a happy ending here, though it's not an entirely hopeless ending. If you squint.

“I need you to go.”

Magnus spoke softly, but firmly. His expression was broken but his voice was sure.

Alec came immediately to his feet because of course he’d been expecting this. Magnus would need time, would need space, and it went against every instinct he possessed not to hover and try to fix things but this wasn’t about him and he needed to respect that.

“Okay,” he rasped, licking his lips. “Just call me when--”

“No.”

The ground dropped out from under Alec’s feet. “No?”

“I don’t want you to leave here with any expectation that I’ll call you.” Magnus raised his eyes slowly. “I don’t want anything you do from here on out to be with the thought in your head that it might somehow repair things between us.”

Alec’s eyes burned and he closed them, ignoring the tear that snaked down his cheek. “I understand.”

“I highly doubt that.” The soft, expressive mouth he’d kissed so many times was pressed into a grim line. “You think this is because you didn’t believe me. Or because you got rough with me when I tried to tell you the truth. It’s not. I know why you didn’t believe me. I don’t know if I could have convinced myself to believe a word Valentine Morgenstern said either, if I were in your position.”

“Then what--”

“Alexander, I suffered horrible things in that cell. And I will deal with those things, in my time, my way. But the truth is, the worst of it was seeing you stand by, stone-faced, suppressing your doubts to follow orders that you knew were wrong. And I _know_ you knew it was wrong, I saw doubt in your eyes, but you went along anyway.” Magnus sneered.

“I’m _sorry_. Magnus, I--”

Magnus’s face crumpled, then smoothed over as if he were donning a mask. “I keep telling myself that the man I fell in love with would never do such a thing. But he did. Which means the man I fell in love with doesn’t actually exist. I wanted him to be real, so I convinced myself you were different. But in the end, you’re just another Shadowhunter, who can convince himself to go along with _anything_ as long as he’s following orders..”

Alec felt those words hit him life a physical blow. They knocked the wind from him. He couldn’t make his voice work to try for another apology, another plea. He could feel himself shrinking, somehow smaller now that Magnus no longer made him feel ten feet tall and capable of overcoming anything.

“I saw something in your face tonight, Alec. A fragment of a memory that had nothing to do with the agony rune.” Magnus’s eyes glistened and he turned away. “I saw a young woman I once encountered when I went toe-to-toe with the Circle in its hey-day. A beautiful girl, a new mother, who used her baby son to justify why she was supporting Valentine as he tortured and mutilated an innocent werewolf child.”

Alec swallowed against the lump in his throat. “My mother.”

Magnus sniffed once and turned around, his face rigid. “I never intended to tell you about that. I never wanted you to think I was trying to turn you against your parents, because I’m not. Anyway, Maryse isn’t actually who you reminded me of. She was zealous. But some of the others who were just...standing by. Their eyes said they knew it was wrong, that they had doubts, but they permitted what happened anyway. They buried their own sense of what was right or wrong in order to obey.”

Alec hung his head, shame threatening to choke him.

“I don’t blame you for doubting what ‘Valentine’ was telling you. That’s a perfectly rational thing to do. I blame you because some small part of you doubted, or wondered, or wasn’t _absolutely certain_ that the man in that cell was who he seemed to be. But you _suppressed_ that part to just...go along and do what you were told to do.”

A single, strangling sob tried to erupt from his throat and Alec choked it down, because feeling guilty or sorry for himself was a luxury he had no business indulging here. Not when Magnus was so mercilessly _right_ about it all.

There were things Alec could have done. He could have gone to the Clave once he knew the Inquisitor was acting without orders. He could have investigated Valentine’s--no, _Magnus’s_ \--claim of swapped identities more thoroughly even after Jace dissuaded him. He didn’t know Valentine well enough to know if the man in the cell was telling the truth, but he did know _Magnus_. Why hadn’t he consulted another warlock, like Magnus’s friend Catarina? Why hadn’t he come back here and tested whether or not the man who looked like his lover was who he claimed to be?

A few questions was all it would have taken. But Alec had suppressed that feeling in his gut to follow along, just like he’d always done. Putting his own instincts and better judgment aside to obey.

“I know, I’m one to talk,” Magnus continued after a moment. He rose, pacing to the French doors that opened onto the balcony and back. “I did nothing for over a century about a vampire whom I knew had murdered mundanes. The difference is, though, I never asked for anyone’s faith that they could look to me for justice if they needed it.”

“I don’t know what to say, Magnus.” To his own ears, Alec’s voice sounded fragile. Even the aftermath of killing Jocelyn hadn’t felt like this.

Maybe because this time, he had no demon to blame for what he’d done.

“There’s nothing to say. I can’t be with you because I can’t be sure that if it ever comes down to a choice between what’s right and your orders, you won’t choose blind obedience.” Magnus’s voice broke, then, and two more scalding tears spilled down Alec’s cheeks. “I want you to leave, Alexander, without any hope of ever returning. I want you to leave and become that man I fooled myself into believing you were. A man who stands against what he knows in his heart and soul is _wrong_.”

Alec nodded jerkily. “I will. I will. Magnus, just please, tell me we can--”

“No.” Magnus cut him off with a gesture, and the door behind Alec flew open at a flick of Magnus’s fingers, making it clear he was to leave now. “Don’t do it in the hopes of mending things with me. Do it because it’s the only way you can ever be free. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

“And if I do?” Alec asked, his voice breaking. He stared at the open door with a new understanding of what Magnus must have felt, being dragged to that chair with no hope of a stay of execution.

“I don’t know, Alec. I guess we’ll see.” He turned away, then, his head bowed and his broad shoulders hunched. “Goodbye, Alexander.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me at [maleccrazedauthor.tumblr.com](http://maleccrazedauthor.tumblr.com) to dish Shadowhunters with me!


End file.
